Trump is still president. He changed the constitution when in power. Jamie Oliver is prime minister in the uk. He and another bunch of celebs won the general election a couple of years ago.
Brexit never happened. The government spent billions on it and abandoned it after 10 years of failed negotiations.

I have a fully electric car now. It's good for what it is. Not much fun to drive, all roads in the uk enforce the speed limit automatically through auto management systems. 60mph is the
maximum you can go on a good day. I say on a good day because depending on the weather the limit is reduced.

If it rains it's 40mph. It doesn't really matter as you don't actually do anything in a car anymore. You tell your personal assistant where you need to be and when you need to get there and
they take care of the rest.

When it's time to leave your assistant tells you to get in the car. I don't travel by car much anymore, everyone works at home now. Most former service jobs are taken care of by bots. I'm
partly responsible for this being a software engineer. I helped develop the first delivery bot. Amazon pushed the boundary further and got delivery of prime down to 2 hours. All city's have an
amazon warehouse.

Average life expectancy now is 120 years of age. A good diet and an excellent medical service means that we are all living much longer. I am "still working", No one retires anymore. The
government scrapped the state pension a few years ago.

The big electric companies no longer exist. They missed a trick when Tesla started producing solar roof tiles. Most uk houses are self sufficient in their power generation. All they need comes
from their house roofs. The demand is much lower and houses now run a much safer 5v supply which covers all lights and appliances in the house.

The only exception is car charging points. The supply for this this quite high and dangerous at 1200v dc. Car manufacturers had done quite well getting range to 500 miles and a charge time of 15
minutes, but with the demise of the national grid charge times at home increased to 48 hours. It means most people don't travel far anymore.

With electric cars and hydrogen commercial vehicles big oil didn't run out more than become in less demand. As a result the price went back up for a short period which pushed the last remaining
cars off the road and reduced demand for oil even more.

Commercial flights are the big problem globally. The solution to green air travel has not been found yet so only short distances can be traveled in the new hydrogen planes. Long haul is a
thing of the past. If you want to travel further than former Europe you need to take multiple flights or travel by sea. USA is all but cut off from the rest of the world with planes not capable
of traveling across the Atlantic. Volcanoes in Iceland make landing there unsafe for the past decade now.

Travel by sea is the only option. This can now take up to 10 days with the return of sail boats. Not the small wooden ones that were pushed along by wind, rather turbines attached to giant
floating platforms. With prevailing wind only in one direction means the turbines face the wind and the maritime electrical generators turn propellers.

International communications has also been affected. Satellites have literally been falling out of the sky. This was planned as part of the normal lifecycle as they gradually move closer to earth
and burn up in the atmosphere. The problem has been replacing them. Currently we have no means to carry a payload into space. Lack of rocket fuel, safety concerns and funding problems meant that
satellites were never replaced. No more sky Tv. In some ways this may be a blessing.

So yea 2040 is an ok place to be. It's certainly different from the 2020's. We still have blue sky's, the grass is still green. Local villages have shops and pubs that have reopened. You can
drink and drive again. The local shop has 3D printers. Without the ability or need to travel far I know all my neighbours and see them almost every day. Work life balance is good. Families stay
stay together in their local community too like the old days.

So the Megaden is nearing completion. Standing on stilts, it's made from mainly reclaimed timber. The doors and windows we picked up from gumtree, the main supports are scaffold boards from
a local farmer and the walls finished with pallet wood.

We did have to buy some new parts for it including the roof, insulation, waterproof builders membrane, the electrics and screws and coach bolts, but I think its still mainly eco friendly from
reclaimed tree hugger materials.

It is a whopping 3.6 meters by 2.4 meters inside. Outside has a covered deck which is another 3.6 meters by 1.7 meters.

I have to say I have loved every minute of the build. There is something so satisfying working with wood, and especially nearly free wood at that. Building something is also brilliant and gives a
great sense of achievement.

So whats a Megaden? Its a place the boys and me can hang out, play games and chill. It is a hideaway at the end of the garden that is removed from the house.

I had many, many designs in my head before I started, I had it sketched out on paper long before I started. How big would it be? What shape would it be? how would the roof pitch, how does
everything join together? How would I get electrics to it? How would I make it water tight?

I have been collecting materials for years, squirrelling away timber round the garden. The doors and windows have been lying under tarpaulins for over a year behind the shed. A length of about 30
meters of armoured cable for the electrics has been hanging on my garage wall for about 15 years. It was left over from a job my Dad did many moons ago.

The main structure sits on 100mm by 100mm by 3m long treated fence posts bolted into fence spikes and hammered into the ground. I used 8 spikes in total, one in each corner and one more
each on the two longer outside runs.

With the spike and posts in place the scaffold boards were clamped in place front and back, then drilled and secured with M10 coach bolts. Ratchet straps were used to pull the posts back
into square while the top boards were put into place.

With metal joist hangers I fitted more scaffold boards between the front and back boards to create a floor structure for both the inside and deck area. These boards are long and heavy and
give a sturdy frame really quickly.

I the used reclaimed timber to make the deck from old fence boards made from pressure treated timber.

For the inside I put down water proof membrane over the joists and laid a layer of 11mm OSB

The walls were made from CLS timber buttons, that were then clad in more 11mm OSB, with a layer of builders membrane and then an outer layer of more fence boards. Inside got some foil
backed insulation before being framed inside with reclaimed pallet wood. Pallets are a real pain to dismantle and there are many videos on youTube on how to do it quickly.

I have never had much success and is a very manual process of splitting the board and hammering out the nails. I did come up with a simpler way of taking them apart using an old car jack
and spinning it up using a impact wrench. It basically just pushed the pallet boards apart with force rather than hammering. The boards had the nails removed and then sanded using a
belt sander before nailing to the walls.

For the electrics, I ordered a shed/garage consumer unit from eBay. It has 2 RCB circuits on it. One for wall sockets and one for a light circuit. Amazon delivered the cable, sockets (with USB)
and lights (thanks prime).

The plan was for 3 double sockets mounted in the walls, 2 lights inside and two lights on the deck. The boys wanted the PS3 moved into the mega den along with a TV on the wall. I
wanted a mini fridge.

My dad came down for the weekend to help with the installation. He likes this sort of work, running in cables and connecting things. I have some sort of certificate that I gained at university
that I believe qualifies me for electrical installation, but that is a while ago now. I'll need to dig this out and check at some stage.

Starting with the consumer unit I had already pulled the wire armoured cable in through the floor and up the cavity in the wall. Black and red and armoured core as earth. We did a quick google on
connection as the unit arrived with no instructions. It's basically a common neutral and common earth.

The live goes into a master breaker which supplies the two other breakers for lights and sockets.

With a good days work done, the electrics were commissioned and working.

We have been living with the Megaden for a few weeks now and its brilliant. Thankfully its dry inside too as we have had a couple of sleep overs in it. The Old Sofa fits perfect, and
the PS3 has just enough wifi signal from an extender in the house.

One of the nights we camped in it there was a meteor shower and we were up at 2 in the morning with the double doors open and watching the meteors in the sky sitting on the deck in our sleeping
bags. If anything it was worth it for that memory alone.

In all I would say the Megaden has cost about £500 to build, which I which I think is quite good as its a bit more sturdy that a run of the mill summer house and hopefully will last for many
years. I still need to paint it. I have the paint, but need to find the time now.

So Ive not posted a blog for a couple of weeks. I have been super busy with other projects. Poor excuse. Its actually quite hard to keep up a schedule of once a week.

I did my first post back in September last year and was able to keep up a run of 43 consecutive weeks posting each Friday.

Then I slipped up a couple of weekends ago and I was gutted. In the end it doesn’t really matter but I am the sort of person when I start something it quickly becomes routine and I have to
keep it going or I beat myself up about it

I follow a couple of YouTube vloggers who do daily uploads. Where do they get the time? I guess they don’t have full time jobs and kids. YouTube is their job, but still it must be a
big pressure to keep it up every day with thousands of followers eagerly awaiting your daily post.

I will keep going with my weekly blog and if I miss a week its no big deal.

Some good news from my CodeClan Cohort 7 this week. 21 out of 21 are now employed in the software development industry. And most in Scotland. The last of us to secure a software developer
job was the other week. Woo hoo! Go Us! Unfortunately one was not kept on beyond a 6 month probation. I'm not sure of the details but it's a real shame and I imagine it is more to do with the
company than the graduate. Based on the 100% success rate they should get something else soon.

I happened to be in Edinburgh last week and popped in to see how things were in CodeClan. A few cohorts have passed through since I was last there. It was project week for some so it was busy
with students working on their projects. It was great to catch-up with the folk and particularly one of my fellow graduates who has gone on to be an instructor there. He never got to leave.

I had been asked previously by CodeClan if they could compile my 16 weeks of blogs while there into a PDF book.

Of course was my response and they had been working on it with my pictures and all. I got a first look and was amazed to find it has over 80 pages. It should be available via the CodeClan website
soon. I'm quite excited to see it go live. I have never actually gone back and read through what I produced last year. Hopefully the spelling and bad grammar have been fixed. I will add a link
here later.

It must be time for the Oil exhibition as I can see the tents erected round the AECC next to my park and ride in bridge of don on my commute into the city. Will I get a ticket and go? Probably I
usually do. But this year it will be the first year I am completely removed from the industry.

So I need another project like a hole in the head. But when "The
Most Complete Arduino Starter Kit" appears on Amazon prime at more than 50% off, Hey it would be rude not too. I looked at all the accessories and found myself clicking the buy with one click
button and less than 24 hrs later it arrived.

Tech Christmas Day... The box was full of all sorts of coloured bits.

This is the 3rd Arduino I've bought over a number of years. The first was a simple learn to program an Arduino kit and came with some basic electronic components.

An Arduino is a solid state micro computer with on-board input and output pins exposed. It's basically a circuit board with a controller about the size of a playing card. It's blue, not that it
matters. It's like a mini PLC or Programmable Logic Controller. It can sence the outside world with connected sensors and be programmed to do something that can affect that world. So you could
connect a light sensor and measure when it gets dark. When it does it can switch on a light. It can be so much cleverer than that though. It can measure how dark it is and can be programmed to
adjust how bright the light is.

That was about as far as my projects got with the first one. Although I did make a bubble machine for the boys. It used a servo to dip a bubble eye in a bowl of fairy liquid, raise it up rotate
it and a fan would turn on and blow bubbles. It would then lower back into the liquid and repeat. It wrecked the servo eventually as the fairy liquid dripped into its gears of the servo. It was
fun when it lasted and the boys enjoyed it.

The second one I bought a few years later was an Arduino Yun (posh model with Wifi) it was bought with a plan to solve my leaving the garage door open problem. I can't see the door from the house
so would forget and go to bed and wake in the morning to the realisation that the door had been open all night.

The door is electric so the plan is to add a couple of limit switches and feed them to the Arduino. It would be programmed to tell me past a certain time that the door was still open. It would
tell me via wifi and I would be able to press a button and it would close. This project will still happen some day. I've probably had the Yun for 3 years now.

And on to the third arduino. It's an R3. I have no idea what's this means. I guess it's probably revision 3 but I still have to read the manual. Out of the box it looked the same, it plugged into
my Mac with a USB cable that provided power and the ability to download programs. I skimmed through the 3 pages of windows installation to get to the Mac installation. Which was 1. download the
zip. File 2. extract and run the programming package.

Why did I buy another Arduino? Here comes the excuse... I would like Jamie (age 9) to get involved and what better way to get some son Dad time with Tech than to build things together.

We have done the first couple of projects and so far so good. Jamie has learnt a resistor can change the brightness of an LED... The bigger the resistor the less bright the LED gets.

I'm looking forward to getting into the more complicated projects and hopefully as I/we will learn more about the Arduino programming language Also hopefully the Yun will be pulled from my desk
drawer and be put into action for its original purpose of telling me when I have left the garage door open. Who knows I might get Jamie to build this project

So this week I have been involved in some software testing. And the usual route of an Excel spreadsheet had been employed to manage faults, bugs or changes. I hate managing software
faults with a spreadsheet. It normally ends in a mess, with multiple versions, poorly formatted, emailed here there and everywhere.

To avoid this and not having access to a real software bug tracking tool like fogbugz I
quickly set up something in Trello.

Trello brilliant and I have many boards for various jobs on the go at one time. It is a simple free to use tool for managing simple tasks and workflows.

I setup 6 lists flowing from left to right. New bugs can be added by the team or by customer. They can be entered directly as a new card or via email by links provided. The email to board
facility is brilliant and it will create a new card automatically.

I hear you say but how can I refer to a card or bug when discussing it with the team. Do I need to refer to the bug name every time? Nope. In google chrome there is an extension that adds unique card numbers automatically. So in discussions you can refer to bug
#27. The extension also has the benefit of adding number of cards in a list. So at a glance you can see how many bugs are raised or how many are ready for test.

The bug tracker board can be accessed by anyone who as access to the team. When connected to the team they can then take control of individual bugs and they can be assigned a bug. So
at a glance, you can see John is working on bug #27, and Tom is testing #32. When John has completed the fix for bug #27 he can move the bug to the ready for test list and assign the bug to
Tom. When Tom tests the bug and it passes the test Tom can move it to Done. If it is not fixed he can move it back to in progress and assign it back to John and add a comment why it
did not pass the test.

Colours can be added to each bug indicating the criticality of the fault. So at a glance you quickly see the red for critical and can concentrate on these first.

Bugs can include attachments, so you can take a screenshot of a fault and quickly add it to the bug to help with the resolution. You can add multiple items to a bug, so if there are a
number of similar faults these can be grouped into one bug and make use of the checklist facility. Tick them off as they are resolved.

So there you go. Trello as a bug tracker. Its not perfect, but I setup ours in under 10 minutes, you can have your whole team collaborating together working through problems or
changes. Its much better than yet another Excel spreadsheet and you can see at a glance visually the status of the bugs.

So I have an affliction making stuff. I always have some project or other on the go. I get a whacky desire to make something and mull it over for weeks, months or years before having to
start.

If I don’t start I just keep thinking about it and thinking about it! I am either planning, making, fixing or repurposing something. I have many projects on the go at one time.

I have to say I enjoy the whole process. I see something and think I can make one of those. I don't have much of a desire to buy it, but given the chance to build or make it. How can I build
that?, and then Im off…

The perfect project is something that takes a long time and has many stages to it. It can evolve and be shaped. I love to spend time subconsciously sketching out in my mind how I can make parts,
how I can adapt parts, how I can engineer something. Its those moments when I am waiting or daydreaming I will be engineering something in my head.

Building the boys Jeep was a perfect example of this. It had lots
of parts, it required research, it needed different types of skills and I had to adapt and repurposing things. The front steering mechanism was a problem I spent ages thinking about.
I needed a way of having a 3 axis mount that could swivel in all three directions. Id sketch out diagrams, play with bits of metal, Lie in bed awake thinking how to solve the problem.
Inspiration and a final solution came while in the local hardware store. Large eye bolts normally used for gates bolted together in an X-Y-Z orientation were a quick and reasonably cheep
and strong solution. Relief, I can stop thinking about that problem.

Both my boys sleep in custom beds I have made. Jamie wanted a high sleeper in the shape of a Campervan, Thomas wanted a Pirate Ship. Both required research, planning and design. The
Campervan was drawn out using a digital projector that beamed the outline of a Campervan onto a giant sheet of MDF that I then traced round with a black Sharpie.

It has working lights and a real sliding door, and a surfboard as a ladder to get to the top bunk.

Thomas's Pirate Ship bed is a similar construction and has an anchor, a ships wheel and a bell (last orders at the bar type bell from Ebay). The anchor and ships wheel were cut out on my
mini Xcarve CNC machine.

I am a bit of a petrol head and one of the big projects I wanted to do was build my own car (I mentioned this in previous posts). My first attempt was to dismantle my mums mini clubman
estate when it was parked up after terminally failing its MOT. I didn’t get very far. I was only 12 and had limited budget and tools. Years later I set about researching and choosing
something new I could build, I had the makers itch that needed scratched. It was a long project that took 4 years to build and get on the road. I took my time and enjoyed all the detailed parts
of the build. Again I loved all the little projects and spent lots of time daydreaming solutions along the way.

This year is no exception. I started collecting materials to make a “Mega Den" for the boys... A sheltered hangout In the garden that we can escape too, we can draw, play games and pretend we are
on holiday all while still in the garden at home. It needed to be bigger than the fort (another scrap wood project I made a few years ago).

I found some windows free from gumtree, some old doors also from gumtree and they sat under a tarpaulin for over a year as I planned out in my head how I could use them. A chance discussion with
a farmer saw me collecting 12 scaffold boards and I had enough to get started.

I have spent a few happy weeks and evenings sawing, hammering and drilling to get to the stage of something resembling a "summerhouse" no MegaDen in the back of the garden. Roofing
materials arrive next week and it will be fully watertight and ready for action.

Electrics arrived this week (thanks amazon prime) and a length of armoured cable that I have squirrelled away in the garage for over 10 years will see power running up under the grass for lights
and sockets.

A couple of weeks should see it finished and that will be another project completed, and I can stop thinking about.

There is more in the pipeline…

I have to build another Jeep. I have all the parts. The boys are bigger now and starting to outgrow the first one. I want to make something all metal and try to use the full 900W
capacity of the motors power in this one. (The jeep currently is only using a third of that)

I need to build a double computer desk for the boys. They will have a workstation and storage each for homework and schools projects

I have Arduino Yun bought with with the sole purpose of warning when the garage door has been left open and it's dark. I can’t see the door from the house unless I go outside. It has an
electric opener and the plan for it to email me to tell me it is open and from my phone I'll be able to close it. It will involve some wiring and some code but I have planned it out in my
head what it needs to do. I am tempted to also connect the Arduino to a Speaker and have it play the thunderbirds theme via WAV file when the door is opened. But that might annoy my
neighbours

So yea, I have the makers itch and the only way to stop it is to keep on making.

I think of projects as good therapy, and if you remember that 80's kids TV program "Why Don't You"...

So a little over 4 years ago I finally got my finger out to apply to be a Chartered Engineer.

Years of procrastination and false starts the application form, the process and the thought of an interview had me stalled. I had the necessary qualification, I had plenty of experience and
I was a member of the IET,

I just lacked the personal motivation to get my finger out. I was "comfortable" in my job I didn't need to be chartered. It would be nice but not a must have.

The biggest blocker was compiling my experience in chronological order on the application form. I had been working for 20 years so remembering and cramming it all into a few pages was daunting.

The shove I needed was when I looked to move up a grade at work. My "boss" blocked me with a job description. Basically a badly written list of must haves to perform the upgrade in position. Lots
of airy fairy statements plucked out of thin air that the person must meet to perform the job. I was doing the job already but had to prove it.

So I set about formulating a case that showed and was backed with evidence of my experience that I could meet the must haves. I spent a few weeks with a text document open on the side of my
desk top, quickly adding experience when I remembered..., reliving my past 20 years.

The document grew and grew and gradually I had recounted all the projects I had worked on. I had ticked off all the job requirements (must haves) and provided real evidence how I met them.

I polished it a bit adding in real must haves the job holder should have and forwarded it to my "boss" and was moved up a grade. The bonus was I now had a full career review down on paper
(or digitally). The dreaded application form for chartered engineer would be easy now.

I sought out 2 sponsors as reference, added all my details, did some more polishing to my career history and sent it off and waited...

I was invited for an interview shortly after. A time and date were set for me to be at a hotel in Altens to be "grilled".

I had a few weeks to prep for my interview. The format would be for me to present for 15 minutes and then answer questions for an hour.

The application pack I had downloaded from the IET website had a guide to what was expected in the presentation and what the interview would cover.

I prepared a pack of 5 slides covering projects (maximum allowed) I have worked on and ticked off all the skills I needed to have. I then printed 3 packs with my slides, my application,
training evidence, work evidence and my CV and presented them neatly in a clear plastic folder.

I also added a couple of pics of my Tiger, the kit car I built. I felt as a software engineer I wanted to be able to show I also have electrical and mechanical hands on skills too.

A few weeks later, I donned my suit and tie and headed for my interview. Confident I had prepared well it was time to be a shiny example of a potential chartered engineer.

I met with a panel of 3 interviewers. The IET guide said there would be 2! Oh well the more the merrier.

We introduced each other and I sat at one side of the table and they at the other. I did my presentation, and quickly talked through all my slides.

The next part I was dreading, what if I couldn't answer the questions? What if I wasn't qualified? It didn't matter. What happened as a good conversation about my experience. One interviewer was
leading the conversation and another was checking off where I met the skills required as I gave my answers.

The main point I had to quickly adapt to was to say I rather than we. Working as a team for so long I am accustomed to saying 'we' rather than 'l', which caught me out a couple of times. I had
said we had created some procedure and had to correct myself and said I, one interviewer said are you sure, while the other chipped in with the front page of the procedure showing my name on the
front cover as the author. Thankfully I had put a copy In the interview pack.

The rest is a bit of a blur but an enjoyable blur. It was a great opportunity to talk about what you have been doing for the last 20 years.

At the end the interviewers came across the pictures of my Tiger and probably had just as many questions about it and how I had built it, an easy subject to talk about without any prep.

So that was it, it was about 1hr 45min when we finished, and I left confident I had done my best. My interviewers couldn't give me any indication of whether I had passed or failed. I would be
contacted in due course.

6 weeks later I received an email. My application must have been good, my presentation and interview must have been good. I was invited to join the engineering council as a chartered engineer.

Go me! Why didn't I do that a long time ago. With a bit of effort and lots of preparation the whole process is very straightforward and not as daunting as first thought.

So if you are thinking of becoming chartered get a copy of the application pack, review in detail what skills you need. If you fall short get those skills and then apply. Give me a shout if
you need anymore info on getting chartered. I would be happy to Help.

So I'd consider myself part of the team now at Aberdeen City Council. Ive managed to get into the swing of how things work,

I have lots of new friends and colleagues, and I am really getting into the hot desking. I get to sit in a different desk each day and get to sit with different people most days.
Although the folk I work with directly in the Team generally sit in the same area.

I have had a few days working from home and its good. Probably the easiest login from home I have ever had or used yet. No hassle, no dongle, no phone app and no code to remember.

Some days I find myself sitting next to the Queen of Tech or princess Leia of ACC leading the rebel army on the war on embracing technology from the dark lords (you will know who you are). I get
to hear all the great tech initiatives that are going on in Aberdeen and the City Council. We met by coincidence just before I started at ACC when she was giving a talk at the Business
Gateway Hub in Bridge of Don as part of the Elevator program.

A couple of interesting tech project I heard about this week are Smart Benches and City Lab.

Smart Benches

ACC have commissioned a couple of Smart Benches for Aberdeen City. They are solar powered smart phone recharging centers in the form of a park bench. So if you are low or run out of charge
you can pop by one of the benches, take a load off and recharge your phone. This is a great concept and it will be good to see how they work and are used when installed. I do have concerns
about a USB point exposed to the elements but I'm sure that has been thought of.

City Lab

The other initiative is City Lab, which is run jointly between The University of Aberdeen, Robert Gordon’s University and ACC. It brings together students, ACC staff, and partner
organisations for one term to design and build sustainable projects for the city.

ACC have identified areas where new projects would help the city and community. Student get to be creative by brainstorming and developing their ideas. I wish I could have had access to something
like this when I studied at RGU.

Some of of the projects going through this scheme are: smart tiles that generate electricity by people walking on them to power traffic lights, smart school busses with teaching capacity, and
smart signage.

This week I also got a sneaky peak at the new ACC website design.

I can't say too much but help came from a design agency called Screen Media. It was great being able to work with these guys and get an insight into the whole web design process.

A lot of thought goes into layout, colours and accessibility. I was well impressed with the draft, and excited to be involved with the process so far. It also goes to show there is a lot more to
good web design than code and a bit of CSS. I will keep you posted when it goes live.

The pics this week are not mine (I wish) I found them on display at the Brewdog next door to Marischal Collage. They are part of an Aberdeen Star Wars Exhibition. Thought they were cool,
and as ever I forgot to note who the artist is. I like them though.

So its been a super busy week and my usual write my blog on the bus time did not pan out. I keep meeting interesting people. What I have written this week I did a while a go. I
am a bit of a hoarder and like things with sentimental value. Anyway here are my 10 favourite things. Note this does not include friends and family, I should maybe title it my
10 favourite inanimate objects...

One - Grampa's hip flask

I'm glad I found this. After my grandpa died years ago his car lay abandoned outside my parents house. They asked me to clean it ready to sell. In the drivers door pocket I found his hip flask.
Well bashed, worn and shiny it still had his favourite tipple in it. My mum said why don't you keep it. Now it lives pride of place on a shelf in my study. Still with my Grampa’s whisky in it.
Johnny walker black label.

Two - Lego

I am a massive Lego fan. I grew up with Lego. Starting with blocks then Lego city and moving on to technical Lego when I grew older. I have two young boys and we have a lot of Lego in the house.
A lot! It's a brilliant and timeless educational toy. I love sitting on the floor with my boys watching them create cars. Some have many different sized wheels with no hope of steering in
reality. They have lasers and guns sticking out at odd angles. We have several big boxes round the house ready for creative minds. I have a few select constructions that took a bit longer to
build that also live pride of place in my study.

Three - mini socket set

I love my tools, and this little red socket set is one of my favourites. It came free with a classic car magazine subscription many years ago. It is a good quality one made by Teng Tolls. It's a
great size and has 13mm and 10mm sockets, hex bits, universal joint and extension bar. I built my own car a few years ago so I guess I could say I have enough tools to build a car.

Four - hot wheels cars

These little 1/64 scale cars are almost a currency in our house. "Im going shopping anyone coming?... "can we have a hot wheels car dad?" Tesco trips involve sifting through the hot wheels
display looking for the rare finds. 90% of them end up in a big play box and have a hard life, chipped and crashed. The 10% I rescue and give them a concours life. It's the ones I recognise from
my childhood. This little mk1 escort is possibly the rarest one. Found in Tesco for 99p and currently trading on eBay for 10 times that. It was mint in box till the boys got hold of it.

Five - Mac book Pro

This is a computer without actually being a computer. I was fed up last year with firing up a windows PC and waiting, and then waiting for updates and waiting for virus checks... so being massive
iPhone and iPad fan I made the jump and splashed out on a desktop mac and loved it. Then when I went to CodeClan they gave me a Mac Book Pro which I cosseted for 4 months till they asked for it
back. It wasn't mine, it was on loan. Lost without it I splashed out again. Mine is a 2016 with graphite grey solid state disk. It gets opened starts immediately and I can work. No waiting.

Six - Coos head

Jamie made this coos head (with a little help) and I just think it's brilliant. He made it from scraps of wood in the shed all his own design. He pulled the bits from the scrap bin and
glued them together. A few bits were cut to length and sanded and given a rub with finishing wax. We have made and sold quite a few of these as part of Udny Designs. Ours and the first hangs
pride of place in our dining room.

Seven - Spring picture

This is more artistic flair from Jamie. We went to a parent child art competition at his primary school. You were given lots of materials, paints glue and an hour to make a spring themed picture.
Bright colours and of course a Tractor (Jamie is tractor daft) We had a busy hour cutting and sticking, laughing and joking. In a frantic rush up to the buzzer we had made this picture. Jamie and
his class mates the. all voted for their favourite picture by placing a tidily wink on their favourite. Cheers and clapping Jamie was rewarded with first place and an Easter egg. Chuffed to bits
the picture lived in the house and Jamie proudly showed it off before disappearing. Several months later it reappeared professionally framed as a gift for my birthday from my wife. Well chuffed
it now hangs in our hall. It is framed brilliantly including hanging some of the worms (pipe cleaners) which had been dug up by the tractors plough (fallen off)

Eight - coffee table

We had to move house because of this table. Inspired by a restaurant in Florida where the tables were wood framed with maritime maps under glass as the surface, I decided to make my own and use a
local OS map. I joined an evening woodwork class at Ellon academy bought some materials and set to work making my table.

It's big! OS maps are big. I built the frame and legs, mortise and tendon joints and all and glued them together. The top was actually so big it wouldn't fit in the car so I had to walk it home.
We lived in a one bedroom semi in Ellon at the time with a table for a mansion. It lived for a year or so under the bed while we looked for a bigger house. It has now been in active service in
our living room in Udny. Scuffed, scraped, wine glass stains and 9 years of kids it's looking well used but still looks great. The map is long gone and now replaced by hundreds of little
Instagram photos scattered below the glass. I can't see it being replaced any time soon apart from maybe updating the pictures.

Nine - Tiger

I built my Tiger 9 years ago. It took me 4 years to complete. I have had it 13 years. Wow! Most people these days only keep their cars 3 years. Well I spent years dreaming
of building my own car (since I was little) so I saved up my pennies, and ordered a kit. I use the term kit here loosely as what I bought was a hodge podge of the basic parts, Frame, body
and some new and used parts. Unlike the more expensive Caterham or Westfield you get every nut and bolt and a comprehensive build manual. Mine had a manual but it was not
comprehensive. I had a brilliant 4 years pottering away in the garage at my own pace, chipping away at the build small project after small project. I have blood sweat and tears in this car
so it will continue to be tucked up in the garage for years to come. Getting out only in the dry and when the weather is good.

Ten - Note pad and pen

I carry a note pad and pen with me most days. Electronic ways of keeping notes is ok but you cant beat a pen and paper. I think in pictures so I like to jot down notes and add diagrams. My
current notepad is a Moleskine lined which has been modified with duct tape to have a pen on the spine. The pen I carry is a simple 4 colour Bic ball point. Having multiple colours in one pen in
genius and is better for diagrams and underlining.

So this week I met someone on the bus. I have met her before and this time we started chatting. She is a chemistry teacher in a high school.

I liked the idea of learning chemistry when I went to secondary school. It sounded exciting, mixing and burning things.

I was however completely put off by my chemistry teacher. "Dr Pockets", he wore a tweed jacket and the black gown. He wasn't very good but worst of all would come up behind you and poke you in
sides with two fingers. I didn't like that or him so I completely switched off from chemistry and dropped it as soon as I could. Perhaps that is why I became an engineer.

Anyway my new friend the chemistry teacher was telling me about what she did her PHD in.

I may get some of the terms wrong but she was researching making mirrors by dissolving silver in a solution. This would form a thin atom thick layer of silver that she would bounce lasers off.
(How cool!)

She described how her lab would be dark as she setup a beam that was split and would go on different paths. One beam would take a longer path than the other to reach a detector and the difference
in time would be measured along with their intensity. It would give interesting facts about the mirror, some of the light would be lost or absorbed.

The standard practice was to use silver and she pondered what would happen if you were to use gold? So she mixed up a solution of gold to find out. Under an electron microscope the gold behaved
differently. No longer an atom thick layer or sheet of silver, the gold had formed into atom chains. Like tiny little snakes or wires. Bizarre! She didn't do anything with these wires and just
put them down as a cool anomaly.

Moving on a few years, what she had created were gold nanowires. I've googled
it and it's a real thing. Gold conducts electricity and the nano wires made from it can also conduct electricity.

At the moment they are being used in medical procedures. They are grown much like a snowflake, in an additive process building out from an electrode spike.

To give them some scale and put them into perspective they are 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. Thats tiny. Smaller than human cells.

In my googling I also came across the cost and if I were to buy some gold nanowires. I wasn't expecting them to be cheap but a handful (literal) of wires 30nm wide by 6000nm long delivered in a
10ml tub is £384.50. (June 2017)

I guess the bulk of the cost is in the manufacture rather than the raw material. They make gold more expensive than gold!

I have been pondering where else gold nano wires could be used, more googling found them used in flexible solar panels and batteries. Being so thin lots of them can give a larger surface area.

I still can't fathom the scale and how you manipulate things so small.

I always remember a story my dad told me. I think it was pre war, and the Germans in a show of engineering skill took a sewing needle and drilled a hole down its center and sent it to the
British. The British, not to be out done took a cast of the hole in the needle and drilled a hole down its center and sent it back to the Germans. Many facts here may also be wrong but it was a
good story about something tiny, and as a kid I could imagine the tiny drills doing the job.

So that's my new friend the chemistry teacher. Have to say much better than 'Dr Pockets' and I actually learnt something interesting.

Thanks for reading, and remember gold nanowires, you heard it first here.

So yea, I read this week that picking your nose and eating it is good for you. It boosts your immune system.

I took great pleasure it telling my boys this. Both are bogie munchers and they were delighted with this news.

I had been told for the past 46 years it was bad for you and I have been dutifully passing on this message. I won't take up this habit but the boys will be boys and it will save me from telling
them off for it.

It got me thinking what else have we been told when growing up is bad for you but might be good. Living in our nanny state maybe boogies are not alone.

Tv is bad for you? Thomas (age6) has a massive vocabulary. He got up the other morning and I asked him how he was and he responded with "fantastic" and while helping me make my packed lunch he
asked are the roots on the spring onions "edible". I don't recall teaching him these words so can only assume it was the TV. He likes his TV. Pepa pig has even taught him a bit of French... he
announced one day "bonjour Delphine donkey!". (I only know it was Peppa Pig as I have seen that episode) We have 3 TVs in the house and something is normally on. Mostly on demand these
days, be it Netflix, Amazon or YouTube.

My other son Jamie (age 9) is tractor daft. He asked for Farming Simulator 17 for his Christmas. Its a game that runs on the computer. Santa snuck in on Christmas Eve and installed it on the Mac
in my study. Jamie likes nothing better than doing a bit of farming. It's a very realistic 3D simulator. He has taught himself how to manage an entire farm. Buying the equipment, budgeting,
sowing crops and reaping the rewards from his harvest.

The tech in this game is brilliant. The 3D rendering and fully explorable maps are "awesome" (to quote Jamie). It even has a mud mod pack which simulates real mud across the farm so at the end of
the day you have to wash your machinery with your 3D jet wash. It's certainly more realistic than any game I had growing up. I'm sure by the time Jamie is old enough to work he will probably be
able to run a profitable farm with little or no training. He has taught himself with this game how to farm and also gained a wealth of knowledge on tractors, combines and other machinery, even to
the point when we are out in the car we have to take the back roads if there is a chance of spotting some farm machinery.

So we are told computer games are bad for you!

All this farming doesn't really matter as Jamie wants to be an Architect. Possibly inspired by MineCraft, an other other 3D simulator. Actually if I remember right he wants to be a successful
architect designing big buildings and then when he is "rich" buy a farm and just do all the "cool tractor type jobs".

So are these games a kind of training? A way of self teaching. They seems to go hand in hand with YouTube too, where you watch a clip on how to do something on your farm and then recreate it.

Kids using iPads is also supposed to be bad for them. Mine both have iPads. Both with Military spec Griffin Defender covers. These are supposed to be tuff. Despite this I have changed the screen
on Jamie's three times. Not an easy job. Getting the glass off without destroying the wifi antenna is almost impossible. And those tiny screws I can nearly see them let along pick them up.
Thankfully parts are cheap on eBay. There are also many YouTube videos on how to change the screen.

Jamie and Thomas are a dab hand at using the iPad it's almost second nature to them, in fact it is. They don't remember a time before them. They learn so much from the apps. They can be driving
trains, identifying animals. playing with numbers, spelling, farming (more farming), being a doctor or dentist, there is even one app where you give Santa a shave.

As an aside they are learning to install their own apps (free ones) and configure them, manage their memory space, and understand the need to recharge charge the battery.

Thomas has Bluetooth headphones he uses with his iPad. He repeats the "Your Bluetooth device is connected" message every time they are turned on. He has destroyed many corded headphones chewing
the cable so wireless and Tech solves this problem.

I did try to introduce Thomas to flight simulator on the Mac. A step too far! It didn't go well. He likes pressing buttons. Perhaps he won't be a pilot.

So yea I might not encourage eating bogies but I will let my kids embrace technology. If they are learning something it can only be good for them and set them up with valuable life skills.

A couple of coding books for kids arrived in the post this week. One for the new raspberry pi and one for Scratch. They are colourful with lots of pictures, so here's hoping I can take the boys
back a step and show them what goes into their games, iPads, and YouTube. Ill let you know how I get on...

So I'm on a train on my way down to Cumbernauld for the weekend. I have Jamie (age9) with me and he is delighted to be on a train. It's a diesel electric. On boarding I pointed out the
massive turbo on the side of the train just below the level of the platform. (I'm an engineer, I notice these things...)

The Diesel engine powers a generator to make electric energy to turn a massive induction motor that makes it move, I tell Jamie.

It's quiet, but you can just hear the engines dull drone as we fly through the countryside. I'm guessing being diesel electric it is more efficient than pure diesel and also cleaner.

I was also on a bus this morning on the way to work. It was one of Aberdeens new hydrogen powered fleet. Diesel busses have been abandoned in favour of turning hydrogen into electricity
which again powers a motor to make the bus move. This bus is almost silent apart from some transmission noise on the move. When stopped there is no noise at all. Great for commuters like me
tapping on my iPhone writing my blog.

I like both these forms of transport in terms of where we are with the tech. I am however a massive car fan… a petrol head at heart and I feel a sense of gloom coming.

I like my petrol and Diesel engines. I have a few cars. All of them older. A big 4x4 with a Diesel engine in it. I love the torque and the feeling of go anywhere it gives, and its 500 miles or so
range. I have a lotus seven kit car with a revey 16v Toyota engine that makes it fly. I also have an Abarth 500 which has a little 1.4 litre turbo charged engine. Its got twin intercoolers and
one of my favourite exhaust notes of any car I have owned.

I have promised the Abarth to Jamie when he is old enough to drive.

Jamie is 9, and he will not be able to drive till he is 17. That's in 8 years time. With care and regular servicing the little Abarth should still be in rude health when he is ready. Its quite
easy. I have had many cars that were over 10 years old and have higher miles on them. The Abarth is a modern car and the build quality and corrosion protection is really good.

The big problem as I see it… will petrol and diesel cars still be on the road in 2025? In only eight years time.

I read an article while having my lunch today. It was a report by Stanford University who are predicting that fossil fuel cars will vanish
in less than EIGHT years time! The report suggests as electric cars become cheeper, 'Big Oil' and the petroleum industry will collapse. People will have no choice but to invest in electric
cars. Electric cars will become cheeper, more reliable and travel further.

It painted a picture of petrol and diesel cars being abandoned. No longer being economical to run. Petrol stations would close and become increasingly difficult to find. Spare parts would stop
being made. Garages will no longer repair the current generation of cars. The falling oil price is predicted to get lower.

So it may be game over for the little Abarth and my 4x4. Eight years does not seem that far away. What's their fate in years to come, abandoned, in the 2025 fuel crisis.

For my lotus seven kit car I'm not so worried. I built it after all. As technology changes who knows I could replace the petrol engine with a dirty great big electric motor (dirty?) and
some modern batteries. Possibly both donated from a crash damaged modern electric car. The performance could be better than the current petrol engine.

My kit car has a simple 12 volt electric system with a separate wire harness for the engine. So to remove the petrol engine and it's ECU would would be easy. It would leave big holes where the
engine, gearbox and petrol tank lived. These can be replaced by the Motor it's ECU, and batteries or fuel cell. Who knows I may be able to put a motor per wheel and make it four wheel
drive. That would be fun.

All the other electric systems would remain unchanged. There is no antilock brakes or traction control. It's really only lights and a horn left when the engines gone.

It should be lighter too, if I could get a range of 200 or so miles that would be ideal. It doesn't go much further on a tank of petrol at the moment. It's not very comfortable for long
distances so the majority of driving I do is just a quick blast at evenings and weekends.

So 2025, here's hoping Jamie gets some use out of the Abarth before we need to abandon it at the side of the road.

I also need to get my finger out as I have dreams and promises of building a hot rod project with the boys when they get older. Nothing fancy. Something rat looking with old black faded paint, a
small noisey engine, no mod cons, and flames up the side. Fingers crossed.

Last week CodeClan contacted me and asked if I would write them an article for their website. Of course I would be delighted to. Apparently someone had been in touch and was looking
to change career, they hated their job and would like to study coding. However they thought at 46 they were too old. Well I am 46 (old?) and I did it (I actually started at CodeClan
when I was 45, but thats splitting hairs)

So almost a year ago my work life took a turn for the worse and came crashing down. My "position was put at risk". Redundancy was inevitable. I was caught up in a failing Oil and Gas industry,
failing department and failing management.

With some dubious ethics I was forced into a no win situation, I walked out. (Silence....)

There I was 46, wife and kids to support, poor job market (Aberdeen) and lots of free time. I was tired having busted a gut for the same company for the past 22. I needed a change.

A few chance meetings and a conversation lead me to look up CodeClan. A small education facility in Edinburgh offering a software coding boot camp. It sounded interesting. I'd heard about boot
camps, it's all about coding, pizza and table tennis.

The CodeClan course was 16 weeks full time study and when (if) you finish you would have a new qualification in a software development. A chance for me to get out of Oil and Gas, change industry
and get into Tech.

I love Tech, and 30 years ago I had learnt some coding at university (pascal and assembly language) as part of my BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. However I have never had any
proper code training. Things have moved on a lot. Being able to retrain would great and possibly a chance for a rest (I wish!).

I applied and was asked down for an interview at the CodeClan office in Edinburgh. I found a super friendly bunch of people, a real buzz, the atmosphere was exciting. There were discussions of
employee partners doing new things with code. As I looked about II could imagine I was in Silicon Valley.

I was offered a place in cohort 7 and I was lucky to be granted funding from the Transition Training Fund (woo hoo! Go me). This is a fund setup to help oil and gas workers retrain having been
made redundant. That's me so I applied. It paid for the bulk of my course fees.

I discussed it with my family if they would they survive without me during the week for the next 16. Happily we all agreed and if there was a chance to improve my prospects in Aberdeen why not.

So I accepted the place and my start date was set at a few months away. I had the whole summer school holidays with my boys to enjoy first (how many people can do that?).

Of course summer rushed by, and before I knew it I was on a train to Edinburgh to meet the rest of my cohort and pick up my Mac Book Pro (you get one to borrow for the duration of the course).
There I met 20 other cohorts all eager to get started. It was a half day warmup session to make sure your Mac is working and meet each other. Back on the train home I had my first chance to
work on the 3 weeks of homework before the real start (that takes the course to 19 weeks in total, plus I had two weeks break at Christmas... So I guess it was 21 weeks for us).

The three weeks whizzed by and I was back down to Edinburgh to start for real. This time I was a commuter, up at 4am on a Monday morning, drive or train to Edinburgh and head home to
Aberdeen on a Friday afternoon. It was hard. I stayed with friends, some weeks in Edinburgh and some weeks in Stirling. I was now a student so keeping costs down was super important,
I had no income.

I met up again with my cohorts and we had a day of induction and team building before we were thrown headlong into code.

16 weeks of intense study took over my life. I had to eat sleep and breath code. The commuting was a pain but I got comfortable in my new routine.

Coding is also hard! It's mentally exhausting. It's a journey of peaks and troughs. Peaks when you spend ages trying to get something working and it finally clicks. Troughs when you spend ages
trying to get something working.

But I gradually became familiar with the format of the boot camp and coding became easier.

Lectures and code alongs in the morning, then paired programming in the afternoon, and finally joy of joys more coding as homework. Thursday nights were a chance to cry into your beer with
your cohorts, or to discuss how brilliant your code was. Thursday night was social night and homework free.

The rest is a bit of a blur and thankfully I did a weekly blog (encouraged by CodeClan) to record my time -->

Before I knew it I was graduating and had a new SQA qualification in software development. More important than that I'd had a ball and I'd gained 20 brilliant new friends. This was a surprise but
so glad, and it alone made it all worth while.

Back home in Aberdeen at the end of January and it was all over and I was back to having lots of free time and spending time with my family.

I had my new bit of paper with my SQA on it.

It was time to start thinking about working again. I was refreshed and ready to get back to it.

I was keen on web development so applied for some jobs in Aberdeen and at the same time started putting myself forward for some freelance work under the guise of www.udnysolutions.co.uk

I'd say my friends in Edinburgh had it easier (don't tell them) as there is a tech boom down there and plenty of CodeClan employer partners to choose from.

Aberdeen doesn't yet, but it's trying. I expected a long wait and many rejections.

While I applied for a few jobs I received a freelance contract to update and refresh a local business website. That kept me busy. Udny Solutions had its first job.

I was then thrilled to be invited for an interview with Aberdeen City Council as a Web Developer (perfect!). Suit and tie on I went for interview with some super nice people and it must have went
well as I was offered the position the following day.

I was chuffed to bits to accept. I am now a Web Developer and I have a shiny new badge with my picture and big bold letters "Web Developer" on it.

Im loving my new job.

So do I miss my old job? Not really, I miss some of the people. It ended up being more about faff than engineering.

Was being made redundant a bad thing? For me I'd have to say in hindsight, No, I was needing a change. I was stuck in a rut. I had spent too long with one company and got little back for it.

Was going to CodeClan worth it? Definitely. Well worth it in fact. I now have a qualification, I had a great experience and gained lots of new friends, and now a new job in tech.

So this week I was in training for a couple of days. In the old days this would have been a game of listen and try to stay awake. However after 16 weeks of intensive teaching at CodeClan a couple
of days was a breeze.

The training was in the customer experience platform CEP of a product by a company called FirmStep. It goes hand and with their Content Management System CMS. You can think of the CMS as the
website and the CEP as the application for forms, process and workflows for customers visiting the website site.

The guy training (Mathew) had traveled up from Edinburgh for the couple of days. The training was very hands on and we were quickly creating process, designing forms, making data and
integrations.

Mathew spotted my cohort 7 sticker proudly displayed on my laptop and queried what it was from. It's the class sticker for my cohort when I studied at CodeClan. It turns out that Mathew is also a
CodeClan graduate from cohort 3. He graduated in April 2016 and joined FirmStep.

Small world, or is it a small tech industry? It was really good to chat about our time at CodeClan and how we found the whole experience. I had done a week of Ruby on Rails but Mathew had not.
The course must have evolved between cohort 3 and cohort 7. Its cool to think that two completely different businesses or workplaces have employees that came from the same coding school can
help each other out.

Later in the week I had another short overview on the CMS platform via video call with a guy based in Canada. It all looks very straight forward and not unlike the Jimdo product I use to do my
own websites and this blog. The CMS is very much fill in the blanks with your content and the product takes care of all the code and configuration. I guess this is a good thing in terms of speed
and reliability. Probably not so good if you like to code.

In other news the CivTech challenges were published this week. Seven in total (I thought there was to be 8).

There is quite a range in there. Quite a few if not all could be solved by tech and software. I have been mulling them over this week thinking of possible solutions. I will need to see if Udny
Solutions can come up with a viable entry. Who knows. It's worth a try. Watch this space...

Oh and news from cohort 7. There have been 2 more of us have secured jobs (edited actually 3) this week. Both on the same day. That must be the majority of us are now gainfully employed in tech
industry. Well done guys! Hopefully our paths may cross in the future.

I have been asked by CodeClan to do a Blog post for them on my journey over the past year. I will either post it here or provide a link. Depends what exciting things happen next
week.

Thanks again for reading

Oh and below is why Im not a happy windows user. My laptop did this yesterday, and this morning it took it upon itself to perform an update without asking me!!!

I spent years in my last job working my way up the ranks from junior software engineer to engineer, senior, lead and then principal. I picked up a growing team peaking at about 10 folk. It became
inversely proportional to the amount of hands on meaningful work I actually did. It was more about meetings, plans and justifying what you needed to do.

I have always thought when a company employs you as an engineer they want you for your brilliant engineering skills, Then you do a good job and they promote you.... you then do less engineering,
and they want you to deal with Faff (office politics, brown nosing, failings of others). Your not trained in Faff and your not good at it but you manage. So they promote you again and
you do even less engineering and have to deal with more Faff (runny noses, time sheets, holiday forms). Before you know it your are promoted again and you find yourself as a engineering manager
(a job you are not trained for) and you no longer do any engineering whatsoever. So you are now doing a job you are not very good at and don't do any work that you are good at...

Now I am at ACC I'm back in the role where I am employed for something I am good at, I have no Faff to deal with, I get to do hands-on, meaningful work and I'm loving it.

I am in a small team involved with updating and creating a new website. My role is to create processes in the websites customer experience platform (CEP).

It's all part of a content management system (CMS) which seems like a whizzy bit of software. I have read somewhere that it is used by quite a few councils in the uk so it's well used and there
are support services and forums for help if needed.

It doesn't take away from the hands-on-ness (couldn't think of a word) because it may be super whizzy but it is just a bunch of clever nuts and bolts and it is up to you to engineer solutions for
the CEP processes.

So far I have been tasked with process and the workflows for the waste and recycling services. Which basically is a customer accessing the website giving their details making a request and behind
the scenes the CEP process I program will automate the output of the requests.

I have had a play with it this week and have processes working from end to end, generating tasks, emails and responses. There is some HTML and CSS involved and also some data structures to name
and format.

Next week I have a couple of days formal training to attend on the CEP and also one on the CMS. The CMS is the front facing website part.

It's the end of week 3 as web developer and I couldn't be happier. In fact all the people I am now working with seem happy. Perhaps it's contagious?

I'm even happy with my commute even though it's part car and part bus and involves some walking. I drive for 15 minutes without getting stuck in traffic. I hop on a bus and have another 15 in to
town. This mornings journey was a hydrogen bus, so calm and almost silent (Sitting on the bus I check my emails, plan for the day and write my blog). I then walk for 5 minutes.

This week for Udny Solutions I did a training evening with a client to show them how to manage and update their website themselves. They were amazed how easy it is compared to their old flat HTML
one. This was key for them wanting to make news updates and add new pictures themselves. It went well and I am super happy to hand over what I created. Roll on more opportunities like that. There
is one more hopefully in the pipeline.

So yea that's me super chuffed to be hands on again. Thanks for reading

The tech industry in Scotland is reported to be worth £5 Billion! The bulk of this is scooped up by Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow... SkyScanner, FanDuel and FreeAgent plus more in Edinburgh,
Thriving Games industry in Dundee, and a new Tech hub in Glasgow.

There is a real buzz right now around tech companies and startups.

Is Aberdeen being left behind and missing out? Aberdeen could do with a boost at this time. In 2016 Scotland employed 84,000 people in tech. And this year there is even more demand. Web and
mobile developers are like hot cakes! ( Who me? )

What does Aberdeen need to do to get more of a share? It doesn't need any natural resources (sorry oil!) it doesn't need to be geographically located near anywhere. It doesn't need huge
investment, It doesn't even need good weather and sun.

It needs clever people, space and ideas. We have the people, We have plenty of space (the shiny new Aberdeen International Business Park is two thirds empty) And ideas which are free.

So what is being done in Aberdeen to get more into this tech boom.

We have the Business Gateway and it's elevator program. A brilliant scheme. There is also talk of a Grey Matters program to get business folk together and identify and create new businesses.
There are tech meet ups including the entrepreneurs club.

I met this week with the guys from CodeClan who were up north on a jolly to Aberdeen to see if there is a demand for people wanting to learn to code. They met with potential employee partners
(who need coding graduates) and potential students (skilled people let down by oil looking to retrain). Putting the two together makes so much sense.

I mentioned before CivTech north, something I'm eagerly awaiting to find out more about and what the 8 tech challenges will be from the public sector.

I mentioned in my blog last week I have started with Aberdeen City Council. And two weeks in and there is lots of talk of tech there. ACC seems very tech savvy. I've been in meetings and
presentations where Artificial intelligence, internet of things, 3D printing and even robots have been discussed. (Count me in...)

ACC also rolled out last week its new (free) city wifi which covers union street and other parts of the city center. A real boost for tech buzz and I am happily uploading this free via the city
center scheme as I type.

So it would be good to see a CodeClan office opening in Aberdeen city, and possibly a Code Base like Edinburgh. Code Base Edinburgh is an old council building filled with tech startups. Aberdeens
Code Base needs to be in the center of the city rather than the outskirts. It will give the pubs, restaurants and shops an added boost of more people in the center, and as the startups flourish
(SkyScanner like) additional premises in the city center can be occupied boosting business further.

I think Aberdeen needs more though.

So come on Aberdeen let's bring some of the £5 billion to the north east and give Aberdeen an additional business beyond oil and tourism. I for one am trying to be part of it.

I started on Tuesday at the Marischal Collage office in the center of Aberdeen. Wow, what a nice place to be. I thought working at the new AIBP office in Dyce would be hard to beat. But I think
Marischal collage has it by a nose. Super new, clean, open, wired for tech, great architecture and right in the center of town.

My first day was a quick drive in to the park and ride in Bridge of Don and jump on a bus. I had to laugh as on the bus was a mate from Udny also off to his first morning in his new job. We both
had a report time of 9:30, we both had our smart new clothes on, and had our packed lunches and playpiece in our school bags. It was good to pass the time on the first bus ride for a while.

It's official, I'm a Web Developer I have signed a years contract and it says it on my shiny new badge.

I use it to swipe in and out every day and the system automatically tracks my time. Hooray, no more time sheets! no more chasing someone for a cost code! no more having my cost code
shutdown mid job! No more justifying to a PM that I need to book a couple of hours to their project having done the work they asked for. Its like a shackle has been removed.

So what does Web Developer mean in reality. The first couple of days were getting settled in reading and working through presentations, core values, HSE and the eLearning tutorials. I met 100’s
of new people in the department. (all super nice). Its a Hot Desking environment (working from home in encouraged) so its sit where you fancy that is free when you come in. Plug in your
laptop, log into your phone (I have a real phone again… no more stupid Madonna headphone!). So far so good as you can be sitting with a group of different people every day.

I have been given a new Laptop (yay a windows PC!) Its Windows 7 and the full Microsoft Office 2010 suite. I need to get the hang of the mouse scrolling the wrong direction and having the @
symbol in a different location on the keyboard again.

I also have a few interesting applications installed as default which I am keen to see if I get to use. These include Visual Studio 2015, Android SDK tools and Java Development Kit.

Oh and one more that made me chuckle is PaintShop Pro... Oh PaintShop Pro how I have missed you. It was was key to drawing graphics for Master Control Station screens many many moons ago.
Many an hour I would be there drawing lines in a .BMP files frustrated knowing there were vector graphics packages out there. But hey I may laugh, I have used it already to resize a graphic
file.

I have also noticed quite a few of my new colleagues are Trello converts and have a number of Trello boards on the go to manage their tasks and workflows.

So Im back to using Outlook to organise my work email and calendar.

Its quite refreshing to start with an empty, inbox, empty calendar and no overdue tasks. I was hoping to setup the same rules linked to developer buttons that I had setup in my last job to
manage my inbox. So far Ive failed and I think its because some of Outlook has been locked down. I like a button that runs a rule that moves any read mail that I have not specifically
flagged into the my archive folder. That way all that is in my inbox is something that is unread or flagged and I need to do something about. All the rest can go to the archive. I
will have another try to setup the rule.

I can’t give specifics on what Im going to be doing (Im still figuring it out myself) but I will be helping develop a new website in a team of about 6.

It will be based on Drupal, which similar to Wordpress. I have had some experience of Wordpress when I created the Hill of Fiddes website a few years ago. It is a CMS which is one of my new
TLA or buzzwords I need to remember… Content Management System. It is based on the language PHP (another TLA… Three Letter Acronym), and it will be hosted on Amazon Web services.

I have run through the Code Academy Tutorial on PHP and it is a scripting language with similarities to HTML. It runs on the server side of the web interface rather than being in the browser like
JavaScript. Oh and it needs a semicolon at the end of every line. Don’t forget that semicolon!

The new website seems quite a big ask with lots of parts that need to be done. It does however have an MVP for its first release. Thanks CodeClan if I don’t use my languages you
taught me at least you made me aware of the Minimal Viable Product.

I’ve had a great week and so far I am really enjoying it, I am loving the change and looking forward to what the rest of the year brings. Watch this space! Shout out to a mate Ross
who likes nothing better than on a Friday (as he put it) "to read my blog on the loo!" Thanks Ross...

So Im starting my new job on Tuesday next week. Im super excited to move into a new career and see what its like to be a full time Web Developer. I need to figure out how to get to the
center of Aberdeen from out in the sticks of Udny Station each day. Its either bus all the way or park and ride part of the way. I might have to get my old mountain bike running again and
take up cycling part of the way too. Anyway thats next week.

Myself and Jamie have been busy with Udny Designs over the past couple of weeks. We have been bombing round Aberdeenshire building robots with kids holiday clubs. We had made simple
to construct kits in the shed along with small wooden hammers and put all the parts in little zip lock bags. We made 50 in total and had a good production line going on in the house.

Tuesday and Wednesday last week we found ourselves in Banff and Peterhead in local schools. The classes had about 8 to 10 kids, and we would step by step take them through the construction
of their individual robots. Starting with adding the goggly eyes to the head, then with the hammer and lots of noise, banging adding the neck to the head and then to the body. A pair
of legs and feet had them standing up, then shoulders and arms had them waving or impersonating super man. We had printed off some stickers and each kit included a couple of body, arms and
head stickers. www.udnydesign.co.uk was included on the sticker for a little bit of free
advertising.

Then this week we did another 3 classes in Inverurie, Stonehaven and Fraserburgh. I have to say that every class was great fun and left me with a real sense of achievement. All the
kids had additional needs so being able to let them build and take home a robot that they had made them selfs felt great. There was lots of questions from the kids about what else they
could make when we come back. I look forward to doing some more classes later in the year. Possibly reindeer kits nearer Christmas.

In other news I went to a meet up of the Aberdeen Entrepreneur Club at The Hub in Bridge of Don. There were two presentations. The first being some dragons den like pitches from some
of the current cohorts running through the Elevator program at the hub. There were 5 of the 15 currently taking part. Its a 12 week program and they are now in week 6. It was
great to see interesting new businesses in the making. And for me they all needed tech and software to help them get fully started.

The other presentation was on CivTech North. I attended a CivTech meet up last year in in Edinburgh so am familiar with the concept. Basically public sector have come up with problems
that need creative input to resolve. 8 problems in total are selected and made public. People and businesses are invited to try to solve the problems by submitting a description on
how they plan to solve the problem. If selected they are given £3000 and given 3 weeks to explore their idea and create a demo. If successful they get through to the next stage are
given £17,000 and and additional 15 weeks to create something that meets its MVP (Minimal Viable Product). If all goes well and the solution is selected to go to product stage, additional
funding ( I wrote down £100K but am not sure on this) and time is provided to create a full product.

The only catch I can see is that the public sector get to use the product royalty free (covering material costs) but you are free to keep the product and sell to the public.

The one I remember from the Edinburgh meet up (I may have mentioned it before) was to help the tourism on the A9 after it is dual ed from Perth to Inverness.

The guys I met had come up with a tourist App that would suggest points of interest on the journey... restaurants, hotels etc that people could visit on route. The last I heard of this
project the guys were adapting their app to cover route 66 in the USA.

Anyway I’ll be watching the CivTech North website with interest when it goes live at some point in May 2017 and ill be keen to see what the 8 challenges are.

Thanks for reading and fingers crossed for me next week. I’ll report back and let you know how I got on.